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Spotlight was named best picture at the 88th annual Academy Awards on Sunday night. The drama showcasing the Boston Globe's reporting on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal beat out The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant and Room. "This film gave a voice to survivors, and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican," said producer Michael Sugar. "Pope Francis, it's time to protect the children and restore the faith."

BOSTON (AP) _ His crimes ruined young lives, and many say he destroyed their faith in the Roman Catholic church. But even some victims of defrocked priest John J. Geoghan didn't wish for the violent death he met. ``Many victims are disappointed,'' said attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents more than 200 alleged victims of Geoghan and other clergy. ``They wish Father John Geoghan had time to be in prison to reflect.'' Geoghan was allegedly strangled and beaten Saturday by Joseph L. Druce, a fellow inmate in the maximum security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. The former priest molested nearly 150...

Just one day after his installation, the new archbishop of Boston has already started making changes. Newscenter 5's Steve Sbraccia reported that on Thursday, Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley named Boston attorney Thomas Hannigan as lead counsel for the archdiocese. Hannigan will handle the more than 500 sex abuse lawsuits brought by those who claim priests sexually abused them. Hannigan's work is no stranger to O'Malley, who helped him settle cases involving the Rev. James Porter a decade ago, when O'Malley was head of the Fall River Diocese. In a statement released on Thursday, O'Malley praised Hannigan. "It is my hope...

Today, a humble friar becomes one of the most powerful men in Boston. After nearly 17 months of nonstop crisis, the Archdiocese of Boston will welcome Archbishop Sean Patrick O'Malley with pomp and protest, optimism and impatience. O'Malley, a 59-year-old Capuchin friar, is, for the third time in his career, taking the helm of a diocese scarred by the behavior of sexually abusive clerics. But the tests he faced in Fall River, where a priest had abused scores of children, and in Palm Beach, Fla., where two bishops had been ousted after admitting to abusing boys, pale in comparison to...

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, US Virgin Islands - She'd been a spiritual wanderer for 20 years, studying century-old teachings of a Russian philosopher, seeking tranquility in Zen and Hinduism. For Charlene Kehoe, Catholicism was a relic of a past she thought she'd left far behind. Her bond with the Catholic Church of her youth had frayed to little more than a seasonal reflex - one token visit at Christmas that was more social than religious. And even that one service could be a sharp reminder of why she'd left. ''I was so disgusted, I think I walked out after Communion,'' Kehoe said...

BOSTON (AP) _ Clergy members and others in the Boston Archdiocese likely sexually abused more than 1,000 people over a period of six decades, Massachusetts' attorney general said Wednesday, calling the scandal so massive it ``borders on the unbelievable.'' The report, the result of a grand jury investigation that explored whether church hierarchy should be charged criminally for turning a blind eye to allegations of abuse, said the archdiocese received complaints from 789 alleged victims, involving more than 250 clergy and other workers. However, when other sources are considered, the attorney general said, the abuse likely affected more than 1,000...

(Rome) It is almost impossible to know what really goes on behind the scenes at a place as secretive as the Vatican. Running the worldwide Roman Catholic Church with its more than one billion members is obviously an enormous undertaking and the important decisions are made by a few powerful clerics headed, of course, by Pope John Paul II. But the Pontiff is 83 years old and not in good health. For Americans concerned about the declining image of the Church in this country, the question of the Pope's competency is crucial. With that in mind, I recently traveled to...

BOSTON -- Bishop Howard Hubbard assigned a priest to churches in the Albany Diocese throughout the 1980s after the priest was forced to leave a Boston parish under a cloud of concerns about his relationships with young boys, newly released internal documents of the Boston Archdiocese revealed Thursday. Hubbard was in regular contact with Auxiliary Bishop Thomas of Boston in 1978 and 1979 as church officials wrestled with how to handle the concern about the Rev. Dozia Wilson's alleged sexual abuse of children. Hubbard and Daily exchanged letters, spoke by phone and met in person about Wilson, according to his...

Bernard Cardinal Law, seven of his current and former bishops and other Archdiocese of Boston officials including at least one nun have been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury probing possible criminal wrongdoing in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, sources said.<!ENDSUMM!> The subpoenas for the grand jury, issued at the request of Attorney General Tom Reilly, were delivered to Law's Brighton residence on Friday, sources familiar with the investigation said. The cardinal is believed to have left for Washington and then Rome either that morning or the night before. Among the seven bishops subpoenaed are Bishop Thomas V....